Home again!.......

 This pic is not from the trip back, but the trip out to Pa.  As soon as we hit Louisiana (although this is from Mississippi) it was green~green~green.  

But first, Peg, my luggage arrived just fine.  My next trip is to South Carolina on American Airlines.  The run a close second to #1 which is Envoy Air (which I've never heard of).  Southwest wasn't even in the top ten.  Which is wonderful, because I had two weeks of pj's, undies, tops, bottoms, a hair dryer, makeup, hats, socks, and two pair of shoes (and a lot of other stuff too).  I also brought stuff I never used.  I thought I would use my flat iron ~ nope.  Never had time.  Sharing a bathroom with another woman....well, you know.  A Yahtzee game.  We were so busy with our journaling, we never played it.  There are a few other items I never used, that will not go into my luggage for the S Carolina trip.  I am planning to keep it very basic.  Sunscreen but very little makeup.  Bottoms I will wear several times with multiple tops.  I do have to take my hiking shoes.  And we do have a piece of luggage that I can carry on, and perhaps not take the big one, because there are 3 stops/plane changes on the trip home.  If stuff is going to get lost, that's where it will happen.

The first day we drove to Meridian, Mississippi.  The hotel was typical.  The "hot breakfast" was a joke, which is really too bad, because it was the only real meal we ate.  We subsisted on fruit, trail mix and the like that first day, every day we were on the road.  Our next stop was Roanoke, Virginia.  I loved that city.  So beautiful.  That night we walked to a grocery store and bought pre-made salads and had that for dinner.  A fresh salad tasted like heaven.  I don't know why my sister didn't want to go to a restaurant....   That day we drove through Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia to arrive at Roanoke.  It was a long day.  Most of those first days were 11 to 13 hours long.  We switched off driving of course.  

Things got ugly in Chatanooga and Knoxville.  The traffic was awful, and the number of semi's increased, along with construction woes.  We decided to avoid these on the trip back.  The hotel in Roanoke was nicer, more room.  But we didn't spend much time in any of them, as we took off again by 8 am.  

We treated ourselves to a short drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway as we left Roanoke.  Oh my.  I highly recommend the part near Roanoke.  It was breathtaking.

Flowers and vistas and beautiful trees ~ it was such a lovely landscape  If I thought I could talk Romeo into it, I would move to Roanoke in a heartbeat.  It's beautiful.  I kept wondering what the parkway looked in the fall.  We saw deer, turkey, all kinds of birds, cotton tail rabbits.  

The third day, we arrived at our first destination, my cousin's farm.  

This is the barn, and a small garage for the 4 wheeler and other machinery.  

A better pic of the farm, taken in the morning as the fog moved through the valley.

We stayed in my Aunt and Uncle's retirement home.  I took this photo from the backyard of my Aunt and Uncle's retirement home.  They passed away years ago, and the house was completely devoid of furniture, but my cousin moved in a couple of twin beds, nightstand, lamp, a window a/c unit for the bedroom, and a small kitchen set.  He went above and beyond ~ with the help of their daughter's college furniture.  

The burial/memorial for Mom went well.  It was a beautiful day.  We had more family come to the memorial than we thought would show up.

The next day was the family reunion, and that was fun too.  

After that we drove to Delaware to see our Aunt, she is my Mom's last living sister.  It was so great to see her, but we were sad as we drove away, as we will not likely see her again.  She is 91.  We felt the same about the last living brother we saw at the memorial and reunion.  It was great to see them though!  

After spending the night with another cousin, we drove to Virginia Beach to see my sister's daughter and family.  The have a beautiful little boy, who is quite the character.  He's not quite 2.  My niece's husband used his points to reserve 3 nights in a Marriott on the beach.  It was beautiful ~ and why not?  That suite was over $800 per night.  We sure didn't need it, and I think my daughter's son-in-law was trying his best to impress.  (I thought he was ok, just very egotistic)  The beach was beautiful, but oh, my.  Hot and humid.  It was hard for me, being from a low humidity environment.

We were on the top floor (9th).  The most annoying thing were the darn elevators.  They were so slow.

Teeny little crab.....

 

Statue of Neptune on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk.

We did take another short drive on another section of the Blue Ridge Pkwy, and although pretty, it didn't offer the landscape scenery we encountered outside of Roanoke.  

The trip home is never as fun as the anticipation and excitement of getting to your initial destination.  The first day was another 13 hour drive.  The next day we drove through Georgia, but missed getting any peaches or pecans.  I believe the peaches were already out of season, but I was hoping to score some jelly or preserves.  It was a bit disappointing. 

One the final day of driving we made time to go to Waco (which my sister pronounced as wacko, lol) and visited Magnolia Market ~ if you watch HGTV, you know this was put together by Chip and Joanna Gaines.  It was so much more than I thought.  And very expensive.  I saw a book on sourdough baking which was priced at $27.99...and I found on Amazon for $14.79.  Everything was over priced in my opinion.  A baseball cap was $34, tee shirts were $32.  We left with the purchase of two kitchen towels, which were the only souvenir we left with.  It's a cool facility though, with activities for kids like a small baseball diamond, and an area with a group of corn hole boards.   

 We finally arrived at my sister's around 4pm.  We enjoyed the beers we brought from Delaware (made in Belgium).  One of the highest alcohol content of any beer (8.5%).

Just one was enough for me!  I had called Southwest to see if I could move my flight from Tuesday to Monday.  Luckily enough they had an open seat with the same departure/arrival times.  I arrived home yesterday, and was so glad to be home with Romeo!  Two weeks is just too long!

Love, 365